


Razor's edge

by Falconette



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 19:36:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1700072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falconette/pseuds/Falconette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While he is holding you tightly in his arms, are those the arms of a lover or spider's claws?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Razor's edge

**Author's Note:**

> (listening to Lana del Rey's 'Million Dollar Man')

**Razor’s edge**

  
  
You gripped the razor's handle and took the steel to his neck.  
  
His chin is tilted upwards, submissively exposing the fine muscle connecting his collarbone and jaw, the skin beneath the blade undefended and yielding. You cleaned a stripe of shaving froth off his throat, took the razor back down again and skimmed another stripe beside it. The emerging skin is glistening with aromatic soap, smooth and beckoning, but you don’t falter, continuing your work with utmost concentration.  
  
Your right hand rinsed the razor in a washbowl in your other hand and went back to his face, uncovering his high chiseled cheeks beneath white layer of froth. You took your time, sliding the unbending steel across his soft, exposed flesh, threatening to nick its perfection with the cold sharpness, removing all excessive layers of soap, hair, sweat, dirt… slicing away everything but the mask he showed to the world. The candlelight is dim but you don’t rely on your eyes to guide your hand, letting your fingers feel their way across familiar valleys and hills of Erwin’s face.  
  
His fair, vigilant eyes barely blinked, intently fixed your face, but the air around them was serene and solemn. His breathing is even and deep, the big hands resting on his thighs. Your eyes made an occasional, fleeting contact with his orbs but neither said a word, respecting the ritual. The jugular vein pumped in even rhythm when the cold razor touched it - without quickening the pulse or missing a beat - so even, he might have been fast asleep. Carried by your hand, the blade danced across his jaw line, followed its outline, slid alongside its shape like a shark’s fin against a swimmer’s body.   
  
When his face was cleanly shaven, you washed the razor and neatly folded it on the desk beside the washbowl. Then you took a clean, folded towel and gently dabbed his skin with it, before smearing couple of aromatic oil droplets between your palms and rubbing them over his face.  
  
He silently wrapped his arm around your waist and sat you down on his thigh.  
  
“Thank you.” his gaze was open, watching you in the eye. Passing years were kind to his features and his handsome face seemed more striking now than even a couple of months ago, when was the last time you had a chance to inspect it so up close. You wondered what he saw when he looked at your face. A childhood friend? A lover? An asset?  
  
You nodded and gave him a wan smile, while your eyes stole a treacherous sideways glance of the turtle-shell razor handle. The initials on it weren’t Erwin’s.  
  
With tips of his fingers on your chin, he gently turned your head towards him, placing a tender kiss on your closed lips.  
  
“Just expressing my gratitude in case you didn’t hear me.” he murmured, one of his hands soothingly sliding across your back. Your smile widened a bit, not without a hint of bitterness in it, and he must have noticed because now his lips pressed harder against yours, parting them, making way for his tongue to seductively slide across the inside of your lips.  
  
You kissed him back, taking in the smell of freshly shaven skin and fragrant oils you borrowed from your husband, leaning against his firm chest. He slid his arm under your knees and lifted you effortlessly, thick muscles in his arms barely knotting. In two strides he reached the bed and knelt beside it, laying you on its soft covers.  
  
“How long do we have? When is …” Erwin started but you pressed two fingers across his mouth.  
  
“Don’t speak his name.” you said in a low voice, feeling your throat tighten with guilt and shame. “You can spend the night.” Erwin studied your face for a moment than nodded, leaning in for a kiss while untangling decorative ribbons and clips from your hair. You sat up and let his fingers nimbly undo elaborate clasps on the back of your dress, freeing you from bodice and starched, lace rimmed collar. Erwin sat behind you and skillfully massaged your tired shoulders and back that bore marks of being tethered by uncomfortable clothing, not unlike the red straps across skin that he suffered from his maneuver gear.  
  
“No matter how you look at it, seems like being marked by chains of some sort is your fate.” Erwin said with a hint of a smile. “If you thought you escaped them after leaving the military, you must have been gravely disappointed. You just exchanged leather for silk ones.”  
  
“Maybe. But If I had stayed in the military, at least we could have…” you whispered.  
  
He leaned his smooth cheek against your shoulder blade and said softly, “You know that would be impossible.”  
  
Your hand reached behind your shoulder and slid its fingers through his slick hair. Of course, you both knew that. You were fortunate enough to catch the eye of an influential man and marry off to Inner walls to become a Lady. In fact, it was Erwin himself who introduced you to your future husband on one occasion, while you were still a mere novice in unmarred uniform, wide-eyed and with only hints of your blossoming womanhood.   
  
Sensing the weight of your silence, Erwin added while placing soft pecks down your spine, pulling you away from the river of memories, “Don’t you think we resemble an old married couple enough as it is?”  
  
You smiled despite yourself, “Oh, I am an old woman now?”   
  
“No,” he slowly shook his head, tenderly tracing your figure with his fingertips, making your skin pleasantly pucker, “just an old weakness.”  
  
'I wonder who is the weak one here', you thought but said, “The intercepted correspondence is on the desk. My husband will not be expecting the documents for two more days, which gives you more than enough time to read every…”  
  
“Later.” Erwin’s murmur cut you off. He took a gentle bite of your buttock, sinking his teeth in your flesh just deep enough to leave you out of breath. 'Of course', a thought flashed through your mind, 'compensation first'. He cupped your breast from behind and pulled you down beneath him, his pulse and breathing quickening. The expression of lustful hunger emerged after the usual mask slipped off his face. Or at least that was what you wanted to believe. You knew Erwin for years, but you still didn’t know the man behind the mask at all.   
  
Can you love somebody you have never met?    
  
“Please be gentle.” you said, instinctively putting a protective hand over your belly. It has only been three months and the bulge was barely visible, but you didn’t want to take any chances.  
  
Not for the first time, there was a clear question in his eyes but he knew you well enough to know that asking aloud would be in vain. He did not have the right to demand, no right to know for sure. That was your sole prerogative. Maybe it was better that way.  
  
His big, warm hand cupped your cheek. “Of course.” he smiled and carefully unraveled rich frills of your dress before sliding the expensive fabric down your thighs.   
  
“I remember the dress you wore on your wedding day.” Erwin said, putting the bundle away. The candlelight flickers reflected in his eyes as he admired your body, but did not warm his gaze. “You looked like a goddess.” he whispered, caressing you. His lips took their time, lingering on sensitive spots of your skin, finding secret valleys and extracting sighs of pleasure from your chest.   
  
Your body reacted, as it always did, like a well tuned violin in the hands of its master. You had no other options, than to surrender.

* * *

  
  
Afterwards, as you laid next to each other, his face buried in your hair and your back pressed against his flat belly, you wished these moments of bliss could last forever. The political intrigues, the monsters that lurked behind far away walls, the regretful decisions and unclean conscience all seemed like an unimportant dream compared to this reality. You let your senses immerse into his touch and fragrant smell of your husband’s shaving oils absorbed by Erwin’s skin. You wanted to imprint every little detail of it into your memory. That way, when you close your eyes with your husband, it will feel like Erwin’s at your side.  
  
“Don’t forget to clean the razor.” Erwin whispered in your ear without a hint of drowsiness in his voice. “He could notice.”  
  
You heavily sighed and obediently nodded, feeling the unstoppable tide of reality seeping in.   
  
“I always sharpen the blade.” you said under your breath. “You taught me that.”

* * *

  
When you woke up sometime during the night, the candle - now just a stump – was illuminating the face of your lover. He sat at the desk perfectly still, bolt upright and formal, ever the soldier, and only his eyes and shadows of the dancing flame moved. He read carefully, line after line, a beautifully carved statue, no hair on his head out of place. You laid still, not wanting to stir him, and continued to watch the still-life scene before you for a long time. You didn’t know when, if ever, will you see him again. When will he be summoned to the Capital? Will the baby already be born by then?   
  
Will he recognize himself when he looks into its eyes?

 

THE END

 


End file.
